


Alone In The Verse

by Gildedmuse



Category: Firefly
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: It's easy to feel alone out here even when they've got each other





	Alone In The Verse

**Author's Note:**

> [Posted to LJ in 2008]

**Alone In The 'Verse**

 

When it‘s just her and Serenity‘s engine keepin‘ her company, that’s when Kaylee is the only one in the ‘verse.

 

Now, Kaylee might not have had the best schoolin’ in the verse, but she knows out in space, everything is quiet and still. Ain’t a word to be heard out in the black, as they say. Still, Serenity herself is plenty loud on the inside. Got all these ticks and hums that bring her to life. Just like a real persons always got their heart beaten, their teeth clickin’ together, just little sounds to prove they‘re really truly living is all. Same with her ship.

 

She jumps a little, makes these odd clickin’ noises that Simon complains about and Jayne makes fun of him for even noticing, but that’s just Serenity’s way of reminding them all that she’s here, too. She’s a person, same as any other. Only… Well, not since she’s a ship and all. But still alive, still needs attention and love. Things Kaylee’s all too glad to be givin’ her.

 

So when she’s in the engine room, don’t matter what’s goin’ on outside. She’s the center of Serenity’s world, and in as far as Kaylee sees, that makes her the only one on board. On her own small, metal world whizzing around through space. She sits with her, listens to the grumbling and knows the differences between a living sound and a noise that means more. She fixes up what needs fixin’, and just loves on her when that’s what she needs.

 

No one would ever take Kaylee for the kind of girl liked being alone. Got a friendly streak in her a mile wide, her mama use to say. But sometimes the captain can get a little too snippy even for her. Sometimes, seeing Zoe hurtin’ hurts Kaylee so much she can barely stand it. Sometimes she thinks if she has to try and explain to Simon one more time why of course he’s gonna get himself punched if he comments on Jayne’s hat that way… Well, a girl needs her space. Even one as cheerful as Kaylee.

 

And her space is wherever Serenity is the loudest. Engine buzzing around can block out everything else on the ship and Kaylee can slip into her hammock and just listen. Way some people like listenin’ to music, that’s how Kaylee treats the notes Serenity cranks out.

 

Easy to slip away in those sounds. She can close her eyes and feel Serenity moving under her; beating and alive. Kaylee can slip right into the ship, become part of it in a way she couldn’t quite explain to anyone ‘xcept maybe River, and that’s only on account of River probably being able to read her mind on it, anyway.

 

Gets into the ship and can feel the way life pulses through every little wire and spare part and there ain’t no one in the world… No one in the whole ‘verse but Kaylee and her girl, making their way through space with not a soul to stop them.

 

Then, course, Mal will come burstin’ in demanding to know what that smell is and she’ll have to explain using part of the air filter on the main hydraulic line cause someone wouldn’t get her a replacement back on Athens when they had the chance. And River would bound in with her odd ways, and Jayne would stop by just to watch Kaylee work, strange in his own ways, too.

 

She loved them all, loved the life and the crew and every corner of this ship where they would stand around just to stand around together. Only sometimes a girl like to be alone with her baby is all.

 

*

 

Only one time Jayne’s ever felt really alone in this ‘verse, and that’s when he had about a hundred mudders offerin’ to buy him drinks and sex him up or - in most the cases - both.

 

Can’t quite explain it, but there is something about being the center of a whole town that makes a man feel damn powerful. And that leaves him feeling pretty much alone.

 

Ain’t a bad feeling, Jayne decides. He ain’t one to be gettin’ lonely out in space none. Well, sometimes, but that ain’t nothing his hand and an hour in his bunk can’t fix. Preacher wouldn’t want to be hearin’ such things, but that’s just the way of the worlds. Being out in the black don’t stop a man from needin’ some attention, if ya get his meanin’. That was just for someone to be petting him down where it needed pettin‘, as it were. Plenty of folks back in muddersville willing to do just that. Preacher wouldn’t have liked him takenin’ advantage of folks that way - been thinking’ a lot on what the preacher would have thought ever since they laid him to rest - but it weren’t nothin’ bad. They wanted to see Jayne as something special, and he didn’t mind the attention so much. Kinda enjoyed it, really. Okay, really enjoyed it. Like any man with urges would.

 

No, the way he felt on Canton weren’t a thing like that loneliness. Was more like… Like so much attention from so many folks that it all cancelled itself out. Jayne was the center of their lives! Little kids looked up to him, told stories about him beatin’ up whole ships of reavers bare handed and all! Jayne had been a hero, and ain’t no one else they loved more so ain’t no one else there with him.

 

Not Mal with all his talk of being captain and always in charge. Not even that pretty dandy of a doctor with all his fancy talk that got Kaylee so wet. No, back on Canton Jayne was the one on top of the world. Big, bad mercenary that he is and these mudders thought he was a hero! Sure as hell praised him like one, and after a couple of drinks to get that fact through his head, sort of like the way it stuck.

 

Far as Jayne’s considered, being alone in a ‘verse where you’re the only hero and doctor boy gets left behind in bars is pretty shiny.

 

*

 

In this empty, cold bed, Zoe feels like the only one left in the ‘verse.

 

Almost asked Mal to switch rooms, back to a single like before her and Wash had set up together. Thought it might make it easier if she didn’t roll over and realize no one is going to be there. Only she didn’t want to seem so weak, not in front of the crew. Not even in front of Mal.

 

Weren’t weak to be missing someone, Zoe realizes, or to feel lonely because of it. Only the missing this time was so fierce she doesn’t know what to do with it all. So she just doesn’t do a thing with the whole of it.

 

Remembers having this talk with Wash. She’d come back from a job injured, and he’d gotten upset the same way he always did, by trying to joke about it. Told Zoe that if she better not get herself killed, cause then Jayne might be first mate. And Wash didn’t think he would be much of a cuddler.

 

“And I have to be married to the first mate,” Wash had claimed, like it was somehow just fact. “I got myself something of an addiction, you see.”

 

For whatever the reason, maybe the fact that she’d just been shot at, Zoe had actually thought about it. Had woken up Wash in the middle of the night, kissed him, and said, “Wouldn’t want you to be waiting on me.”

 

“Huh?” Wash looked most adorable when he’s just woken up. Made this funny snorting nose, and his eyes only half opened. Not that he brushed his hair, anyway, but it seemed to have an extra roughness to it when he’d just got up. “Sorry, I must have missed the first part of that conversation, being asleep and all.”

 

“If I got killed,” Zoe elaborated, and even know she ain’t sure why she felt the need that night to go talking about things like this. “Wouldn’t want to see you waiting to die to be with me again.”

 

“This your way of trying to break up with me? ‘Cause I wasn‘t serious about the Jayne thing.”

 

“Go back to sleep husband.” That was that. Wasn’t like their talks about family or moving to a safer job. They didn’t have it again, just let it stand, and Zoe was content enough knowing that Wash knew it was okay for him to move on after she died. Sure she would long before that goofy, beautiful husband of hers. She was the one use to putting herself on the line, is all, and sure she stayed smart about it but Zoe isn’t a fool. Knew as good as any - no, more so than most - just how little it took to really get yourself dead.

 

Never did imagine, though, she’d be the last one in the whole of the ‘verse. Or their own private ‘verse, this little double room filled with the smell of him, his toys, his clothes, everything Wash that she couldn’t start letting go of. Not yet, not ever it felt like. Had her heart broken by a thousand deaths in the war, this is the only one left her feeling so alone.

  
  


*

 

There is a trick to making the client feel as if the two of you are completely alone in the universe.

 

Back at the academy, their instructors had always stressed the importance of having whatever was in the background fade away. Create a safe environment for the customer. Let him or her know that they’re the center of your affection, your night together, of the entire universe if that is what it takes.

 

Nandi use to call it the old Adam and Eve trick. “Make’em think you two are the only ones alive,” she explained, “And it’s up to you to repopulate all the planets in the skies.”

 

No matter how improper it was, hearing her say that always made Inara giggle. She still thinks of it occasionally, when a particularly uninteresting client wants her to smile. She’ll think about her time back at the academy with Nandi, always getting in trouble long before she left. Or of Serenity and Kaylee, the almost childish sleepover they would have that made Inara feel so light with a sort of joy she doesn’t get in her usual sleepovers, as it were.

 

Less and less she lets herself think of Mal. Not that she couldn’t find more than enough memories of him that made her smile - the captain is not as much of a bei bi dà sha gua as he wishes people to think of him - it’s just… She has this feeling. It’s a bad feeling for a companion to have, trust her, she’s brutally aware of this fact. The sort of feeling she had been trained to pretend, never to actually deal with.

 

When she thinks on Mal and the things he does, tiny things that make Inara smile, she’s so afraid she’ll slip. That somehow, the client will know he isn’t the only one in her heart - never mind the whole bloody universe. She couldn’t even keep her mind clear of some dirty scoundrel of a captain, how is Inara ever suppose to be truly alone?

 

*

 

It’s only when Simon is in the infirmary that he can make everything else in the universe disappear.

 

It’s a practiced calm, but one he can achieve with little or no thought after all these years of training. Even with the crew squabbling - Mal both bleeding out and barking orders as is all too common - Simon just has to take a few deep breaths, dope the captain up, and get to work. That’s all it takes and for a few, glorious moments Simon is entirely alone. It all fades out of importance until what is left is the infirmary, his tools, and a problem he must solve. He’s the only one left standing in this ‘verse.

 

Oh. He’s already sure he’s the only sane person left on this ship. He shouldn’t go thinking such things, not when River could hear… read… He isn’t sure, he just knows he doesn’t want to hurt her. Doesn’t want anyone to hurt her, though there seems to be a great be ‘verse out there just waiting to do exactly that. Surely she doesn’t need her brother being a selfish imbecile to make things worse for her but every now and then it‘s nice, being so alone. Not the sort of loneliness that creeps up to him when he realizes everything he left behind for this life on the run. Not the sort that crawls under the covers with him all night to fight away sleep, fills his head with thoughts of just how different he is, how much he doesn’t belong out here. This is a different type of alone all together. The type that leaves Simon completely in control of himself. No alliance to hide from, no captain to boss him about, no mercenary to avoid…

 

No sister to protect.

 

Simon may frown as he’s taking yet another bullet out from Jayne’s arm, but to be honest he’s thankful for the chance to disappear into his own universe, populated only with by himself. He can pretend that he is back on Osiris achieving everything he set out to do with his life. That he is a talented and well paid doctor at a highly respected medical facility. When Simon is completely alone inside his own head he is the best at what he does, and what he does is simply medicine. Without all the complications life has thrown at them, making him blunder and stumble in ways he never had to worry about back home.

 

When there is surgery that needs to get done Simon is, for a few wonderful moments, utterly selfish and that’s completely okay.

 

*

 

Always. Always she’s alone.

 

No one here. Not now. Not ever. Sometimes, yes, sometimes they flutter by her and she feels them and is them, but they’re never her. They care and they touch, but only the body and never the girl. The way she sees them is not the way they see. So she can never be any closer to them then completely gone.

 

No, no, no. That isn’t what she wants to say at all.

 

Simon tries so hard for her. To get inside her head. To fix the broken parts. Needs Kaylee’s help, River thinks. Needs her to show him what parts go where. Silly brother. Silly, silly Simon. Doesn’t realize that one person can’t fix everything. He isn’t use to it. Back on Osiris he fixed so many people all alone. Still tries that even out here. Closes himself off, won’t let her in. Wants to do it alone. Only this isn’t Osiris. Things aren’t the same.

 

Back on Osiris, she use to dance.

 

She still dances. Around the hold when it’s empty. Or not. It doesn’t make so much of a difference. She remembers the steps from when she was child. Remembers the music and plays it back.

 

It was the only way out of school and their pointless work she could so easily complete. Away from all the kids back home that teased her for being so different. Then she would dance and be alone.

 

They’d just made it so she was always trapped in the music, really. Always alone.

 

So much the girl wanted to be able to break out and say! To hug her brother and tell him not to be so frightened of himself. To touch Zoe and reassure her of Wash’s love. To thank her captain for believing in her when the whole ‘verse was full of doubt.

 

But then she tries and they just stare. Don’t get what the crazy girl is saying. Don’t hear the music so they can’t follow the dance and that just leaves her alone.


End file.
